


Orange Peels

by MooseFeels



Series: In the Garden of Your Love [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Fluff, Haircuts, Human Castiel, Kissing, Mild Angst, gardener!dean, teenage!castiel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 08:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has never been so angry in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orange Peels

He sees the bruise and it makes him so _angry_ he's terrified.

Dean hadn't been that angry in years. Not since the incident at the bar in Texas.

God _damn_ , does Dean hate Texas.

He hears Castiel’s footsteps before he sees him, and he smiles. Castiel’s parents, Mister and Mrs. Milton, are increasingly out of town on business, and it meanst that Castiel can do the long walk across the property to Dean’s little house.

Dean doesn’t get what Castiel sees in him. He’s poor, his house is tiny. He’s scarred up. But for some reason, when he sees the rest of the staff make their way to their own quarters or off the property altogether, Dean knows that Castiel will be there by sundown.

He turns around and his stomach plummets.

Castiel is beautiful. He’s like an angel or something. His dark, dark hair. His bright blue eyes. His smooth, clean body and soft skin.

And there’s a bruise, a huge, ugly thing spread over his face. Purple and brown and yellow. A marr over him.

Dean moves forward to hold Castiel’s face in his hands. He touches the bruising lightly- it’s swollen and probably stings like hell. Castiel bites his lip and looks up at Dean. He’s embarrassed. He’s been punched in the fucking eye and he’s embarrassed.

 _Fucking society manners_ , he thinks.

He softly brushes Castiel’s cheek with his thumb and asks, “Have you taken anything?”

Castiel’s voice is rough and shaking when he answers him. “Just aspirin,” he says. “It’s what the staff left me.”

It takes control not to shout, to keep it together. “Who? Who did this?” he asks, and he knows that his voice is so close to being a strangled growl.

“No one important,” is the answer. “No one worth getting angry about, I swear. They do this sometimes, it’s okay. They’re suspended until the end of the year and when they get back, they’re up for disciplinary review. I’ll probably never-”

“Come inside,” he interrupts. He feels like his blood is made of fire. He’s...he’s _never_ been this angry before. “I think I’ve got some lemonade or something.” He pulls Castiel toward the house, and Castiel follows him.

He heads into the kitchen, leaving Castiel to hang out in the living room.

He doesn’t have lemonade, per se. He does have lemons, though, and a wooden reamer and a cup of sugar and water. He pulls the pitcher out of the cabinet with no small amount of noise and starts squeezing. He hears Castiel ask something distantly from the living room.

He sticks his head in. “Pardon?” He asks.

“Why don’t you have any flowers?” Castiel asks. He’s sitting on the couch and he looks so damn uncomfortable. He always does at first. He doesn’t seem to know how to be safe in a space. He's always on-guard, like some sort of politeness hyper-vigilance. It’s the same reason, Dean realizes, that he looked so embarrassed earlier. His posture is ramrod straight. His hands are folded in his lap.

Dean shrugs and goes back to the kitchen. Keeps working on the lemonade. “I don’t know,” he answers. “I guess I was just never much a flowers type of guy.”

It’s true. The flowers, they’re okay and everything but he could take them or leave them. He finishes the lemonade and pours a couple of glasses. Comes into the living room.  “I mean,” he continues, “they’re my job. But they also,” he thinks a moment. There’s a way Castiel lights up when he’s looking at flowers, with the petals under his fingers or strewn through his hair. he takes a sip. It’s a little too sweet. “Jeez, they also make you happy, okay?” he confesses.

Castiel smiles, and it’s like having an extra sun in the world. He eases into the couch and pulls in close to Dean. “You’re very kind,” he says, almost offhand. “Do you know that?”

For all of the times that Castiel can be too tightly wound, there are also times where he’s casually tender. Nonchalant with is affection. He lays his head on Dean’s shoulder, and it makes that angry thing in Dean’s chest unclench, at least for a little while.

“Naw,” he replies. He moves around a little bit, and Castiel looks up at him.

He looks so young. He looks so beautiful. He looks so perfect, even with the bruise.

Dean leans forward and kisses Castiel, careful of the black eye.

Castiel sighs into it. He presses himself into Dean’s lap, wraps his arms over Dean’s shoulders. Nips at his lip a little.  Maneuvers his hands into Dean’s hair and pulls back some, revealing Dean’s neck.

He pulls away from the kiss, looking every bit the mischievous teenager. “You’ve got more of a handle than usual,” he says.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I’ve been meaning to get to a barber, but I haven’t really had the money to get it together.”

“Do you have scissors?” Castiel asks.

“Pardon?” Dean replies.

They tug a small chair from the kitchen to the bathroom. Dean sits and Castiel stands, set up in the bathtub.

“You’re sure about this?” Dean asks.

“You have a glorified buzz cut,” Castiel says. “I can’t really fuck this up. Besides, I’ve been cutting my own hair for years.”

Dean chuckles as Castiel directs his head downward. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you swear,” he comments.

“Really?” Castiel asks. “Did I do it right?”

“You did very well,” Dean answers, laughing. “I’d never suspect you were a rookie at all.”

The bathroom is cool and grey. The sun begins to go down as Castiel finishes. He brushes his hands through Dean’s hair and then says, “Okay, take off you clothes. You’re going to want to shower and get all of this hair off of you.”

He climbs out of the bath as Dean stands and takes off his shirt. He’s leaving the room, and Dean says, “Wait. Don’t go.”

Castiel turns, he smiles. He looks embarrassed. A little uncomfortable. A little out of his realm.

And then he shuts the bathroom door and starts tugging off his own clothes.


End file.
